When customers contact you by phone, a busy signal is one sound
you don't want them to hear. Besides turning away potential
business, a busy signal announces that your business operates with
a single phone line and little or no staff.

That's not exactly the image you want to create. As a
business owner, you want your customers to keep coming back.
Obviously, a busy signal won't help. Since you can't
guarantee you'll always have an open phone line, you need some
way to handle the calls you and your staff can't field
personally. Voice mail may be just what your business needs.

What Is Voice Mail?

On the surface, voice mail might sound like just a fancy name
for an answering machine, but it's much more. Answering
machines can't take calls that come in while you're on the
phone. Voice mail can. Voice mail also offers added features such
as multiple voice-mailboxes, pager notification and remote
access.

Perhaps most important, voice mail can create the illusion that
yours is a much larger company. "It can make a one-line
business seem an awful lot bigger," says Lisa Harrison,
business call answering product manager for Nynex, a voice-mail
provider in New York City. "That can be a real
boost."

Used properly, your voice mail can even serve as a sales and
marketing tool. Mark Gordon, president of national voice-mail
service provider American Voice Mail, based in Los Angeles, advises
recording a greeting that says more than "I'm not
available."

"Use it to paint a picture, no matter what you're
selling, and get people to want to buy it. You're automating a
tremendous amount of work this way," says Gordon, explaining
that you can give your sales pitch just once, and every caller will
hear it.

There are hundreds of individual voice-mail options, which can
make your selection overwhelming. Essentially, however, voice-mail
options fall into two categories: voice-mail services you subscribe
to and systems you can purchase.

Voice-Mail Services

When you subscribe to most voice-mail services, the company
assigns you one phone number for customers to call. You use
another, private number to access your messages. Most companies can
have your voice-mail service up and running within 24 hours from
the time you order it.

"We can do everything from wake-up calls to reminder
calls," says Gordon, whose company offers a basic package for
$9.95 per month in most areas of the country. This type of service
is great for someone starting a sideline business while still
employed elsewhere. While you're busy at your job, your voice
mail can handle your sideline business calls.

For those who want customers to be able to contact them free of
charge, American Voice Mail offers toll-free service for $4.95 per
month, plus 10.9 cents per minute.

Because most business is done locally, however, many business
owners actually prefer using a local number in the area where they
do business, says Gordon. A local number helps a company appear to
be a part of the local community, even if it's actually located
in another state. With offices in 65 cities across the country,
American Voice Mail can usually provide you with a local
number.

If you prefer toll-free service at a flat rate, Alpha Voice Mail
in Grand Junction, Colorado, offers a complete, toll-free,
voice-mail-service package for $46 per month. Your customers have
the convenience of using a toll-free number to contact you, and you
use a toll-free number to retrieve your messages. Because customers
can call you without charge, you may get leads you wouldn't get
otherwise, says James Santacroce, one of Alpha's principals.
And your cost won't vary with the number or length of calls you
receive.

For those who travel extensively, a flat-rate, toll-free service
is simply the most convenient system. "I have a lot of truck
drivers who use it just to keep in touch with people," says
Santacroce.

"You can easily drop $50 to $100 per month on these
services," warns John Jainschigg, editor of
Teleconnect, a monthly communications magazine, explaining
that subscriber services are among the most expensive. Basic
service might be only $10 per month, but each option costs extra.
So by the time you add all the extra features you want, service can
get pricey. Phone company rates are generally lower.

As a more economical option, consider using the voice-mail
services offered through your local phone company. You can continue
to use your existing phone number--with voice mail--for a monthly
fee ranging from $6 to $20 per month, depending on where you live.
Some phone companies may also charge a one-time setup fee, ranging
from $10 to $65. All these costs are simply added to your phone
bill.

Phone companies typically charge businesses a higher rate than
residential customers. "It's a policy established by the
Communications Act of 1934," explains Joan Rasmussen of Bell
Atlantic, an Arlington, Virginia-based phone company. The
legislation mandates that telephone service be made affordable to
residential customers by charging them lower rates than businesses.
In effect, businesses subsidize residential phone-service
rates.

If your business is homebased, however, you may qualify for the
lower residential rates. Most phone companies charge business rates
only when the business is based outside the home and has extensive
communications needs.

One drawback of using phone-company services is the fact that
they can't always offer what you need. For instance, Nynex
offers pager notification only to customers living in New York
state.

Regardless of whether you use your phone company or another
service, you won't have to purchase or maintain equipment. That
means you don't have to worry about expensive repairs, and your
voice-mail service won't produce additional office clutter,
something that can be crucial in tight quarters. Representatives of
most such services are also available around the clock to answer
questions. And if the service you ordered isn't meeting your
needs, in most cases, you're not obligated to continue it.

Changing technology is another consideration. "If you buy
something, you have whatever its capabilities are today,"
Rasmussen says. "Some of these technologies are changing so
much. You will get the advantage of these advances because
we're making the upgrades."

Either way, you're obligating yourself to pay monthly fees,
but that may be the best way to go if you have limited capital.
"What you're doing is exchanging upfront costs for running
costs," says Jainschigg, explaining that, with a system
purchase, you lay out your cash up front; with a service, you pay
monthly fees.

Voice-Mail Equipment for Purchase

For those who prefer upfront costs to running costs, Jainschigg
estimates there are between 50 and 100 systems for sale, most of
which work with your personal computer. Though most are priced well
over $1,000, with many falling in the $5,000-to-$25,000 range, a
handful of systems with price tags of $500 or less are available to
meet the needs of small companies with limited resources.

Most voice-mail systems offer a variety of useful options that
help make your company seem bigger and more professional. If you
spend a lot of time away from your office, you'll want a system
with pager notification. This feature beeps your pager or forwards
your calls to another phone of your choice whenever a message comes
in.

Another useful feature is the capability for multiple mailboxes.
Systems with this feature can be programmed to ask callers to press
a certain number, depending on the reason for their call. For
instance, callers can be instructed to press "1" for
sales, "2" for billing or "3" for technical
support. Not only does this make your company seem larger, but it
also helps you sort your messages by priority and type. If your
business emphasizes phone sales, be sure to look for a system with
ample recording time.

When choosing a voice-mail system, advises Jainschigg, it's
important to get one that's not only compatible with your phone
system, but one that can be integrated with it as well. If your
systems aren't integrated, voice mail could unwittingly send a
call to a busy extension, allowing the call to be "dropped on
the floor"--the caller will get disconnected rather than
reaching your voice mail.

Telephony Experts handles such problems by offering to
preprogram its product, the Small Business Assistant, with settings
designed to integrate its system with your existing phone system,
says Shelton Glenn, a salesperson at Telephony Experts.

Setting up the Small Business Assistant also requires the
installation of some hardware. "People are not always
comfortable with opening up their PCs," Glenn acknowledges.
For those customers, the company offers a free month of technical
support, which can be used to guide the purchaser step by step
through the installation process.

Your computer's operating system is another consideration in
choosing a voice-mail system. Windows 95, for instance, is not
designed to be mission-critical, which means it can seize up at any
time. If your computer's operating system crashes, so will your
voice mail system.

In order to minimize the risk of crashes, Glenn advises using
one computer for nothing but your voice-mail system. If you
can't afford to dedicate a computer just to voice mail,
you'll be safest if you stick with typical computer uses such
as word-processing and spreadsheet programs. You could run into
trouble, however, when using "high-stress" programs such
as page layout and graphics programs, he says.

If you envision heavy computer use and don't have the means
to dedicate a separate computer to your voice-mail system, consider
buying a stand-alone system. The most affordable stand-alone system
on the market is Tina, from Datacom International in Telford,
Pennsylvania.

Tina is a box, about the size of a TV remote control, that has a
jack to plug into your phone, and both a jack and an electrical
plug to connect to the wall.

Tina's features are comparable to those of any
computer-based voice-mail system. If you're swamped with
paperwork and don't want to take calls, for instance, you can
program Tina to route callers to voice mail without ringing your
phone. If you're waiting for an important call, you can program
the machine to ring your phone only for that call. You can also
program it to forward calls to a cellular phone, a pager or a fax
machine.

"Some of these little stand-alone boxes are awesome,"
says Jainschigg. But before you choose a stand-alone system, be
sure your phone system has the capability to use all its features.
Tina, for example, will work with any phone system, but you must
have caller ID and three-way calling in order to take advantage of
all its features.

Whether you're looking for voice-mail software or a
stand-alone system, the place to shop is a specialized retail store
that sells only telecommunications equipment, computers and other
business equipment. Another option is to order directly from the
manufacturers.

Whatever you buy, consider your business's future needs. If
you buy a system designed to handle two phone lines, you may need
to buy another system when your company grows and you need to add
phone lines down the road. "It wouldn't be practical to
run a one- or two-line system with 10 people in your office,"
Jainschigg says.

Whatever type of voice mail you opt for, you can rest assured
that you won't be missing important calls. And when you're
in business, every call is an important call.

To order: Call numbers listed in the Call Guide in your
local phone book

Note: If you decide not to go with one of your local
telephone company's voice-mail services, you should check out
these voice-mail hardware and software systems. The systems work
with your computer to give you the versatility to forward your
calls, notify your pager or take a message.

Tina is offered in both a one-line (model # 3354, $229) and
two-line (model #3365, $299) version. Tina is available through
retailers, or by calling Datacom International at (215) 723-3805.
For a demonstration, call (888) DCI-TINA.

The Small Business Assistant is a PC-based system that uses
Windows 3.1, 3.11 or 95. The one- or two-line version costs $395
and the three-to-24-line version costs $795. To order, call
Telephony Experts at (800) 838-8642.

VoiceFX is a PC-based software package available in a
single-line format for $99, or a multiline format for $199 (handles
up to eight lines). To order, call Orion Telecom at (800)
669-8088.

Local Service Providers

Local phone companies will add voice mail to your basic
telephone service for monthly fees of $6.25 or more, with most
averaging between $10 and $20. Some companies also charge one-time
installation fees of $10 to $65. To order, contact your local phone
company. Here are some examples.

Alpha Voice Mail, in Grand Junction, Colorado, offers a
complete toll-free and voice-mail service package for a flat fee of
$46 per month with no installation or activation fees. To order,
call (800) 300-9712.

American Voice Mail, in Los Angeles, offers basic voice-mail
service for $9.95 per month. Toll-free service costs $4.95 per
month, plus 10.9 cents per minute. Other premium features are also
available for an additional monthly charge. To order, call (800)
347-2861.